Swansea youngsters beat Cardiff to reach cup final!

Swansea development squad win 3-1 to reach FAW Youth Cup Final

Photo from Supporters Director
@HuwCooze,  who was clearly in
attendance last night!

After watching their senior colleagues demolish their South Walian rivals a little while ago, the Swans' development team achieved a similar result last night at the GenQuip stadium in Port Talbot. Goals from Ryan Hedges, Josh Sheehan & Kyle Copp (a penalty) were enough to see them through to the final - which will see them play the winner of Llandudno vs The New Saints who play this Sunday.

Ryan Hedges opened the scoring on the half hour mark, capitalising on sloppy play at the back from Cardiff and finishing coolly, and that was the only goal before the interval. The second half sprang to life though - first Cardiff got back on level terms through Abdi Noor, who smashed a half volley past Oliver Davies in the Swansea goal, before the undoubted moment of the match came through Swansea captain Josh Sheehan.

Reportedly impressive throughout, Sheehan put the icing on his cake when he spotted Cardiff 'keeper Massaro off his line. Without hesitating, he struck a fourty-five yard effort which left the goalkeeper stranded, and the Swans were celebrating regaining the lead. The goal came in the sixty-fourth minute, and the score remained that way until David Tutonda fouled Kyle Copp ten minutes from time. The foul was in the area, so Swansea had a penalty while Tutonda received a second yellow for his troubles, and Copp himself got up to dispatch the penalty down the middle.

The extra man advantage meant Swansea were able to see out the rest of the game with ease, and they're now in contention to win the FAW Youth Cup for a remarkable FIFTH time in a row! That represents a great effort by our academy team, and hopefully they can once again see their charges raise the trophy when the final comes around.

Fantasy Swans XI - Revealed!

After we discussed which fictional character we'd like in charge of the Swans on this week's Jackcast, it got me wondering who would make an "all time fantasy XI"

Slightly less serious than normal then. People have commented that I should do some more light-hearted content, and picking my all time fantasy XI seems a good laugh to me. As mentioned in the title, this week's Twitter question on The JackCast (the Swansea City fan podcast - check it out here if you haven't already!) was "Which fictional character would you like to see in charge of the Swans?", and I have to say I was quite pleased with the options I came up with. 

My first thought was The Fonz. This was partly motivated by his famous double thumbs up - Matt Harrison, the host of The JackCast, is famous for his double thumbs up photos - but the more I think about it the more I like it. Imagine if we got to an FA Cup Final and had to have suits fitted - everyone would be in jeans and leather jackets! Plus, I love the idea of Fonzie rocking into Huw's office and opening with "Hey! Mr J!". I'd also speculate he could have used his famous "whack his elbow into something to make it work trick" on Alvaro Vazquez, but that's probably against workers rights.

Next, I thought maybe it should be someone with a bit of motivational hwyl. Step forward Tony Montana - AKA Scarface. He's vaguely South American (Central American?) so he'd appreciate a decent style of football, while you better be sure you play to 100% with old Scarface in charge. He wouldn't suffer fools for a second, and I think his press conferences would be epic. "I'm ******* Tony Montana!!".

My last shout for manager was Del Boy. He's already got a Big-Ron style sheepskin, and again, his press conferences would be incredible. He'd be dropping in stupid French and Italian phrases all over the shop, and I bet he's got an eye for a player. Plus, you can bet your bottom dollar that he'd be a whizz in the transfer market. He'd have got Michu for a case of knock-off cutlery and half a dozen porcelain Siamese cats that play "How Much Is That Doggy In The Window?"... 

As the title suggest though, this is about the team. Who's made the cut? In goals you'd need someone who is both completely unaffected by fear, and who has a safe set of hands. Step forward Stretch Armstrong! Once he'd been suggested he was an obvious choice for so many reasons, and as anyone who accidentally broke theirs open when they were a kid will know the inside of Stretch is very sticky indeed. Make him take one for the team and pinprick his hands, and the ball will literally stick any time he gets his mitts on it. Poifect.

In defence, I was thinking about what kind of character would make a good full-back then I got thinking - surely twins would offer you great balance, as well as a telepathic link which could stand you in good stead? Ok, it didn't work for Man Utd with Fabio & Rafael, but that hasn't stopped me appointing WilyKit & WilyKat of The Thundercats as our attacking wingbacks. Undoubted cult favourites, their hoverboards would definitely aid their forays down the flanks while a look at their Wikipedia page tells me they "use tricks and traps to combat evil". That should do the job away at Stoke!

Centreback is a position which requires the player in question to have a certain...imperiousness about them, and one of the answers I got on Twitter when I asked who should make a fantasy XI was Kratos - from the God of War computer game series. I can't say I've played it myself, but I Googled him and he looks like a nasty bastard, so that'll do for me. Now who to pair him with?

If you've got one centre-half who's liable to get pulled out of position in a bid to smash a centre-forward, his defensive partner should be a bit of a cooler customer. Not averse to physicality by any means, but a bit of a thinker, and that's why I've gone with Jason Bourne. Cultured after spending a lot of time overseas, he's got a great eye for detail and can assess a situation for potential danger like no-one else. Rumoured to have a nagging feeling he should be playing for a big club, but can't quite remember why so for now he's content playing for the Swans.

In midfield, I think we'd still have to stick with the Swans' system so let's go with three in the middle. I'm thinking Socrates definitely has to get in there - and no, not the Brazilian footballer. The Greek philosopher was famed in the field of ethics, and I think he'd be the perfect man to set the tempo and extol the virtues of the Swansea way. As much as I think that would work, you'd then need a bit of muscle to go with it and who better than Captain America? Shirt sales in the US alone would make his inclusion worth it, but his drive and engine would be second to none. In terms of a box to box midfielder you couldn't do much better!

That just leaves one other central midfielder, and I think the perfect man to provide the link between attack and midfield is James Bond. Again, in terms of marketing it'd be genius, but on the field his guile and predilection for doing the unusual would surely come up trumps more often than not. Especially when you see who we've got on the wings. The other thing Bond would be good for is his connections with the establishment. In terms of getting paperwork done at the last minute on deadline day and pulling a few strings behind the scenes, having a direct line to the old boy network surely can't be a bad thing. Plus, think of the gizmos Q would give him to play with ahead of a South Wales derby!

Out wide then. Key to this position is (obviously) pace, and who is faster than Billy Whizz? The Beano character is famously fast and the only difficulty would be keeping track of him as he flies up and down the flank. On the other side, a great Twitter suggestion sees Icarus get the nod. He famously flew too close to the sun and had his wings singed, and as the son of Daedalus (a master craftsman in his own right) he's clearly got talent in the blood. What's more, he'd be over all the impudent genius stuff (what with seeing his wings burned) and similar to Cristiano Ronaldo you'd imagine he'd put in the legwork to go with his undoubted ability.

That just leaves centre-forward. I wanted to pick Roy of the Rovers but I was informed that was cheating, so again I return to a suggestion and we're going to go with Inspector Gadget leading the line. With two tasty wingers and an unpredictable attacking midfielder behind him it's important he's able to latch on to anything that gets played into him, but given his tendency to shout "Go Go Gadget <insert limb/other item>" you'd imagine he wouldn't have a problem getting his bonce on any speculative centres. I think the "gadget neck" thing would prove to be particularly handy!

There you have then, my Fantasy Swans XI. Just a bit of fun - who would you have in your fantasy team?

How the pupil can beat the master - tactical breakdown of how Monk can beat Everton

How Garry Monk can achieve what no previous Swansea manager has - beating Everton

The Swansea Way's newest contributor Jon Trew of Inspire Football Coaching looks ahead to this weekend's match against Everton.

Only two points have been taken in the five league games played against Everton in the Premiership, and the Toffees appear to definitely be one of our bogey teams. In all the games we've played against them we have been beaten down the wings with link up play between the Everton wing backs and wingers and this, I believe, will be a key area to concentrate on when playing Everton at the weekend. Garry Monk must adapt his tactics to counter Roberto Martinez’s, and make a few changes to the team which put in an embarrassing second half performance against West Brom last time out.

Central midfield

In order to adapt and compete against Everton it would make sense to play with 3 central midfielders with Leon playing in the pivot role and De Guzman and Canas playing in box to box roles in front of him. This would allow the midfield to match the central three of Everton and not get overloaded in the centre. The Swans will have to cut out distribution to Lukaku and ideally Leon would sit just in front of him, intercepting such passes and picking up the second ball from longer passes in to the Belgian.

In central midfield I’ve gone for Canas and De Guzman for two reasons. Reason one being that we always struggle against the wing backs when playing Everton, so depending on which channel the game is being played, the central midfielder can come across to help out the Swansea wingers or wing backs. Secondly, Everton rely on their wing backs getting high up the pitch and delivering crosses - both from the byline and deeper positions, getting the forwards (Mirallas and Deulofeu) on the ball as well as cutting inside (see the goals Cardiff conceded last weekend). Doubling up high up the pitch and stopping the attack as quickly as possible is the best form of defence.

Defence

Both Williams and Amat will have to be on form as Lukaku is one of the most physical and powerful forwards they will have come up against this season. If Swansea start to struggle defensively in midfield Canas could drop in alongside Britton to form two defensive midfielders allowing De Guzman to get further forward and link up with Michu.

Forwards

I’ve gone for Michu up front for purely tactical purposes, though Bony didn't have a great second half against WBA so could maybe do with a rest and the kick up the backside being benched provides. Rather than playing Michu as a central striker I would get him to play in the ‘false number nine’ role. - allowing him to drop into midfield when Everton are in possession, and linking play with the wingers when we're in possession of the ball. It’s important that Michu closes down the defender in possession and also that he moves into the channels to help out the wingers when defending. 

Pressing

It’s interesting to look back at the FA cup final when Martinez tactically outsmarted Mancini. I spoke with the co-founder of my football education company (www.inspirefootballcoaching.com) Jed Davies, who explained that Wigan pressed the Man City centre backs for the first 10 mins and then spent x amount of time not pressing. This then brought a sense of confusion to the centre-backs and they became lazy/too relaxed in possession bringing into play psychological aspects of the game. It would be interesting to see Swansea do a similar thing and see if ‘the scholar’ can use ‘the mentors’ own tactics against him. What is for sure is that when in our own half, Swansea must press the player on the ball to stop Everton playing us off the park as was seen once we conceded the second goal in the FA cup. 

Tactics

Jed (@TPiMBW) also mentioned that Martinez got his two forwards to split as wide as possible, which meant that City's centrebacks had to choose to either leave them unmarked out wide (given Man City's preference for attacking with their fullbacks), or drift wide and leave a gap in the centre of the field. Everton play similar attacking tactics as Man City did under Mancini in that they attack with eight players and leave the two centre backs at the back - by asking Michu and, say, Pablo to stay up front to do the same when Everton are attacking, it would leave two vs two which would allow for a quick counter attack should Swansea quickly gain possession in their half of the pitch. Just like Kompany and Nastasic, Stones and Distin wouldn’t want to venture too far wide.

The Swans must play at their own tempo and alleviate pressure by passing out from the back whilst keeping possession in the first half, then hit Everton on the counter attack when Everton’s wing backs are pushing further upfield later in the game. The team must stay disciplined and not worry if at first the tactics don’t work - Wigan were under the cosh for three minutes of the FA cup final but by sticking with the game plan they were able to put the tactics into effect.

Lessons to learn from WBA game

The team must also learn quickly from the mistakes made in the West Brom game, and be switched on from the first whistle. When the Swans played Everton in the FA cup they conceded very early - morale isn’t particularly high at the moment and this could prove to be disastrous if there is a case of deja-vu.

The big mistake in the second half against West Brom was for the team to play a high line. As mentioned in my previous article for The Swansea Way, the solution should have been for Amat and Williams to play deeper which would allow the space in the middle of the pitch for Leon to control the game. The players were too close together which led to quick passing and lots of mistakes.

If you take a look at the images below you can see how much more space the defence and midfield would have had by dropping deeper. This would have allowed Amat and Williams to play a slower game to alleviate the pressure on the team, and would also have given the midfield more room to control the centre of the pitch.

Crossing 

It’s imperative that the team make the pitch as big as possible and use the wings to our advantage. When Baines and Coleman get forward it leaves space in the final third of the pitch, and leaves Everton vulnerable to a quick counter attack. Rangel and Davies must look to play the ball in between the central defender and wing back for our wingers to exploit the space in behind, and put crosses in from the byline.

Michu scored the majority of his goals last season from arriving late into the box so the Swans must play to their strengths. The first half against WBA saw the majority of crosses coming from in and around the penalty area which led to 10 chances in the first half. The second half was a different story and the majority of crosses came from deep positions which as we know were unsuccessful. As I’ve mentioned previously, the best strategy for Swansea under Brendan Rodgers was to play the ball in between the central defender and full back and then play a drilled ball across the face of the goal.

No doubt Garry Monk has been busy analysing the WBA defeat in minute detail and will have been working hard with the team on the training pitch to put right all the wrongs. If the Swans stick to the game plan then we could come away with at least a point if not all three. Fingers crossed it’s the latter and Garry Monk will have outsmarted his friend and former manager.

If you’re interested in coaching education please visit www.inspirefootballcoaching.com to find details of our London coaching conference in London on 8th of June.

You can find me on twitter @jon_inspire

Monk: "Michu great but it's teamwork that'll keep us up"

Swansea boss glad to reintroduce Spaniard, but acknowledges team effort is required to halt slide

There are various theories as to why we've fallen apart in the second half of the last two league games. I think against Palace there's only so much analysis to be done as we were at the tail end of a crazy run of games, but against WBA the manner in which we surrendered control of the game was alarming. 

Jon Trew did a very interesting piece yesterday (link) where he suggested that in order to regain possession the Swans should actually have dropped deeper, and opened the pitch up. In the first half, Ash spent a large amount of time in the deepest section of the pitch, but in the second half he was active much further forward. It was then pointed out on Twitter that after Michu came on for Jose Canas Ash didn't spend ANY time in the deepest section of the pitch for the remainder of the match. 

I'm not saying Michu was at fault - he's clearly not going to be match fit and it was the way the whole team was trying to operate. We lost our cohesion in midfield and our pass completion dropped ten percent compared to the first half - a dramatic dropoff and must unlike what we've come to expect from the Swans.

Given his prolonged absence, it's understandable that a large section of the support are hoping Michu can fire us to safety now that he's back in contention for a place in the lineup, but Garry Monk is a bit more pragmatic about things:

"A few of the other boys have been chipping in with goals while Michu has been out, and of course that has to continue. If he can come in and add his quality and get a few goals then great, but it's a team effort. 

"They were difficult circumstances — ideally it would have been nice to bring him on in a better situation. Maybe if we'd been controlling the game, Michu could have had more of an influence, but it's great to see him back fit and those minutes on the pitch will help him."  

http://www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk/Swansea-City-expect-Michu-says-Garry-Monk/story-20822351-detail/story.html#ixzz2wIu4LRom

It's totally understandable why Monk brought Michu on against the Baggies. With the Swans suffering from extreme opposition pressure, bringing Pablo on for Jose would have been a ballsy move, given West Brom had been harrying our central midfield all game. Michu offers a much more physical threat, but sadly he wasn't able to affect proceedings that greatly.

The problem we face now is that Bony & Michu haven't actually played together on the field that much. Bony was introduced slowly after missing a large portion of pre-season, and by the time he was regularly included Michu had succumbed to injury. I don't think we've got time for them to build a partnership, as using both in the starting eleven would drastically alter the dynamic of a typical Swansea team.

I think given Bony has shown over the last few months he's more than capable of leading the line for us, for now Michu should still be reintroduced slowly. I think since Monk's come in one of the big positives is how much more of the pitch we're using, and by replacing Bony with Michu - or even putting Michu behind the Ivorian - I think it would result in our possession game being played more towards our own goal. With Bony (despite a couple of iffy performances) being able to hold up possession that much further up the field it stretches the game in Swansea's favour, and that gives our midfielders room to run into.

For now we should stick with three proper central midfielders and Bony up top, and if you're looking for an impact player off the bench to replace Bony I don't think you could do much better than Miguel Perez Cuesta. He could do with building up his match fitness slowly (much has recently been made of shortened recovery periods leading to recurring injuries) and I think by taking Bony off on sixty-five/seventy minutes you could arguably get the best out of what both strikers can offer you at the moment.

Firstly, Bony can run that much harder knowing he doesn't have to make the full ninety minutes. Considering how much of a handful he is for centre-halves anyway, that really is an intriguing concept. Secondly, the same can be said of Michu - if he's only got a shorter time period to play then he can charge around like a bull in a china shop (I tried to think of a toreador pun for ages but sadly failed) and cause chaos in the ranks of tiring opposition defences.

This idea is probably going to be met with dismay from a large section of the support who'd favour Michu returning to the starting lineup as soon as he's physically up to it, but I do think we've looked a more balanced team in the last few months. Ok, results haven't improved but we're just a lucky break away from a good result. Against Palace & WBA Bony had chances which on any other day could well have gone in, and those goals would probably have seen us pick up an extra five points - which would be absolutely massive right about now.

So, Michu super-sub then? For now, at least...

Jekyll & Hyde - How Swansea lost the game to West Brom

The Swansea Way welcomes it's newest contributor - long time Swans fan and all round football fanatic Jon Trew. Here he runs his analytical eye over the 2-1 defeat to West Brom.

‘The Swansea Way’

Definition

1. A slick tiki taka style of play, pleasing on the eye 

2. To do things in a difficult manner

The second definition definitely applies to the performance against West Brom. Swansea are now in a dog fight and for the first time this season fans are genuinely concerned. In the past two home games the Swans have been coasting at half time, only to undo all the good work with second half performances which were awful and, quite frankly, embarrassing. To throw away five points at home against two teams we are in a relegation battle with could prove to be costly come the final game of the season - but then again, the Swans never do things the easy way...

After the game against Palace it was widely accepted that the players were fatigued and we could understand why we played so poorly in the second half, but that does not apply to the game against West Brom. The players had plenty of rest time and an opportunity to work on the training field to further implement the ideas that Monk wants to put across. I’ve analysed the stats yesterday from the first and second half to see how we lost the game.

Work Rate

A quick look at the heat maps shows a drop in work rate during the second half - it’s concerning that it was the same story versus Crystal Palace. Since Laudrup left the club training has been increased and intensified - as much of a fan as I am of Garry Monk, it could be that this has led to more tiredness in matches and on a similar note players have been picking up niggling injuries which could also be attributed to this. 

Defence

The Swans bossed the defence and played from the back in the first half, and this is an extremely important part of the possession style of play. Looking at the action areas of Ashley Williams in the first half, the defence played deeper and were able to pass the ball about with ease and without pressure. 18.18% of the play in the first half was around the penalty area. Bizarrely the second half was only 6.25%. It appears that the defence pushed up and played a high line which meant the space in between the defence and midfield was decreased leading to Swansea losing control of the play. I’ll come back to this later.

Possession 

	1st half	2nd half
Possession	62%	54%
Passes	376	267
% of completed passes	90%	81%

As mentioned previously, the defence played a high line in the second half which reduced the space in midfield. This made the central midfield more compact with less room to move and pass the ball - especially as Monk had gone with two defensive midfielders in Britton and Canas. Swansea had 62% possession first half compared to 54% in the second half. This is further backed up by the passes stat that 90% of passes were completed in the first half as opposed to 81% in the second. WBA pressed the team quicker which led to the players panicking and losing possession. If the defence had played deeper as in the first half this pressure could have been alleviated as they would have had more room to pass the ball and dictate rather than playing into West Broms hands. Uncharacteristically, the team played hurried long balls up to the attackers.

Midfield

Leon Britton is a crucial member of the team and essential to our possession based style. In the second half the Swans lost control of the midfield and we were unable to get him on the ball, with only a total of thirty-five passes completed compared to fifty-two in the first half - one of the reasons being the lack of space in the middle of the park. I would prefer to see Swansea play with Leon as the pivot in front of the defence and then a box to box midfielder just in front of him with an attacking midfielder. As good as Canas is, I don’t believe that he brings enough quality to the team to play alongside Leon and similarly De Guzman is better at running in from a deep position as he was anonymous in the attacking position behind Bony against WBA. It seemed to me that it was a rather negative tactic to play two defensive midfielders when we need two attack minded players to bring creativity in the final third, especially as De Guzman’s goals have come from him playing in the box to box role.

Wilfried Bony

I’ve been very impressed with the way Bony has adapted his game for the better since Monk was appointed. He has been working harder for the team and he had a great first half against West Brom. The second half though he was incredibly poor. First of all, if you look at the heat maps below, Bony worked hard defensively and played deeper allowing his team mates to get in behind him. The second half he was quite static and remained too central. He only won 1 of 6 aerial duals in the second half compared to 4 of 6 in the first. He was unable to hold the ball up which put pressure on the defence as Swansea could just not keep possession.

Attacking play

In all honesty, the Swans should have been 3-0 up within the first 10/15 minutes but they failed to convert the other nine attempts they had in the first half. The wingers and full backs were a constant thorn in West Brom's sides but they were unable to supply the perfect ball. Below are the positions of the crosses in both halves. 

The first half the crosses were consistent from the wings just outside the area and were more dangerous. The second half was a different story. The crosses were from much deeper positions as the wingers and wing backs weren’t as effective. For me the team plays best as they did in the first half, with constant balls in between the oppositions full back and central defender. Rangel was playing this type of ball for fun to Routledge against WBA in the first half, but for some reason they didn’t attempt as much in the second half 

As fans we can’t kid ourselves anymore. There is no such thing as ‘too good to go down’. The players have to take responsibility. Scoring one of ten attempts in the first half when dominating the match is simply not good enough. I do have faith in Monk but I do think he needs a hardened number two like Roberto Martinez had in Graeme Jones. Someone with experience to shout at the players and someone who has no affiliation to the club. We all want Monk to do well but the club need to help him by bringing in someone of his choice to be a ‘bad cop’ to his ‘good cop’. 

I have every faith that come the final whistle against Sunderland on the last game of the season, Swansea will still be a Premiership team. Let’s get fully behind the team and believe! Who are we?! JACK ARMY!

You can follow me on twitter - @jon_inspire

If you are a budding football coach or are interested in football education then please feel free to take a look at my coach education company - www.inspirefootballcoaching.com - We have a conference in London on the 8th of June - see website for details.

Stats from this article are taken from squawka.com

Swan This Day: March 16 2002 - Swansea beat 10-man Mansfield at the Vetch

On this day twelve years ago...

Swansea 2 (Watkin [pen], Romo) - 0 Mansfield

Today's installment sees us look back again to our recent past - only twelve years ago today we were battling it out against Mansfield at the Vetch with such luminaries as Steve Brodie, Jonathan Coates and John Williams in the starting eleven, and our lineup that day also included Ryan Casey - who I remember fondly because he gave me his autograph outside Burger King. Ah, memories.

2002: Swans beat Mansfield Town 2–0 at the Vetch thanks to goals from Steve Watkin (pen) and David Romo pic.twitter.com/SKLRZNhxQc

— Swan This Day (@SwanThisDay) March 16, 2014

Halfway through the first half of this matchup, Mansfield had 'keeper Kevin Pilkington (who I believe used to play for Manchester United) sent off for a foul on Steve Watkin after he'd half-cleared Casey's shot, and Watkin got up to convert the subsequent penalty. We made matters safe through David Romo - he came in at a time when we signed quite a few random Frenchmen and I remember being excited at the prospect of talented foreigners joining the ranks. 

Sadly they weren't all up to scratch, though I remember Romo being tidy enough and Mamady Sidibe ended up playing in the Premiership for Stoke - I have always thought he's been stealing a living though. The other Frenchmen I can remember are Mattias Verschave and Nicolas Fabiano - who'd both joined on loan from PSG. I never rated either of them to be honest, and a quick Google tells me they didn't really set the world alight after leaving. 

Were you at this match? What are your memories of our French signings? Sign up and get in touch using the MatchChat commenting plugin below!

Why losing 2-1 isn't Garry Monk's fault

Two horrible second half displays in a row - but what more could Monk have done?

Well, now I'm worried. I try to occupy the role of the eternal optimist, but two poor second half performances in a row have got me seriously concerned as we're now firmly involved in a relegation scrap. I still think we've got more than enough to pull clear but bigger and better teams than us have been sent down in the past, and we need to be more consistent than we have been in the last two outings if we are to secure our Premier League status for another year any time soon.

Yesterday saw us fly out of the blocks once again, and (as against Crystal Palace) we should have been out of sight within half an hour. The tempo we started at was excellent and with only two minutes on the clock Lamah latched onto a brilliant Bony through ball and cut inside, before curling one across goal and into the far corner of Ben Foster's net. The Liberty erupted and for the next twenty minutes or so the atmosphere in the stadium was as good as anything I've heard in recent times. The football wasn't bad either!

First Bony looked to be through from a Canas through ball but he was flagged offside, then he connected with Lamah's cross but his shot from point blank range was straight at Foster. Anywhere else, and it would have been 2-0 and things may well have turned out differently. West Brom weren't overawed by any means though - by that point Anichebe had already stung Vorm's hands and not long after Foster saved from Bony Sessegnon sliced one high and wide. The warning signs were there, but the Swans didn't heed them. Before half-time Lamah & Ashley Williams would head just wide and over from corners, De Guzman would fail to hit the target from another Lamah cross while Bony skied an effort that had sat up awkwardly. Even Canas had a pop but his volley was very ambitious - he did well but couldn't quite keep it down enough. 

So it was that half time came and it was 1-0 to the Swans, but if I'm honest by the time the ref's whistle blew to halt proceedings I was already quite worried. West Brom had looked dangerous on the break, and as the half had gone on we'd lost control of the centre of the park. Albion's high pressing game saw us drop deeper and deeper, and we'd reverted to trying to break out down the flanks. We'd started so well but given how the first half had ended I felt we needed to up the tempo after the break - sadly something that we failed to do but our opponents did with relish.

Straight from the off Swansea were second best, and second to everything. Sessegnon capitalised on the Swans going to sleep and found space to unleash a pearler into the bottom left corner of Vorm's net, and not long afterwards Michu came on to much acclaim for Jose Canas. De Guzman dropped in alongside Leon and for about five minutes this had the effect that was desired - we managed to push up the field slightly and De Guzman's more offensive leanings meant we were able to shift the ball through the gears without getting bogged down in defensive midfield. 

Sadly though, this didn't last. For me we lost all fluency around this point and hardly retained possession after it. It was a combination of things - West Brom's excellent pressing game, De Guzman's natural inclinations not reflecting those of a natural central midfielder, and Michu's preference to want to latch on to a final ball. We saw the Spaniard trying to orchestrate play in order to arrive at a point where he could strike an effort on goal, but all too often he should have just showed for the ball. He has been out for a long, long time though so it'll take him a while to get up to speed, as well as to familiarise himself with the changes to the way we play that have taken hold since Monk's appointment.

Mulumbu's goal was really, really disappointing. He got to a loose ball in midfield first and drifted past Michu's half-hearted attempt to get to him, before waltzing...actually, it was more like jogging through the Swansea midfield. Leon and De Guzman had drifted apart and he was able to run straight through the middle of them before passing the ball into Vorm's bottom right corner. Great finish, but defensively that goal was horrible. Nobody pressed him, and we're supposed to have three central midfielders! How can a defensive midfielder, nay, THE most defensive midfielder I've seen in the Premier League in years drift through our entire midfield without a challenge being made? That's what Monk will be asking his team in training tomorrow, and he'll no doubt be pretty miffed at the nature of his side's collapse in the second half.

As for Monk though - what more could he have done? Against Palace it could be argued he could have tweaked things a bit more before they ultimately got their equaliser but yesterday I couldn't see much more that he could have done. We were being pressed back onto our own eighteen yard line, so I think taking Canas off for Michu was probably the best move. It's possible bringing Pablo on there would have helped us retain possession (as we simply didn't for the majority of the second half) but with West Brom pressing and getting stuck into us I can one-hundred percent see why Monk brought Michu on. Plus, if he had only brought him on with ten minutes to go after the Swans had conceded in the fifty-second minute fans would have been questioning why he wasn't brought on sooner. 

Lamah picked up a bit of an injury and had to be replaced by Pablo Hernandez late on, while the other sub was Emnes on for Leon once the Swans had gone 2-1 down. I think Monk set the team out right and I don't think he can be blamed for the performance yesterday where we faded consistently from around the twenty-five minute mark on. You could tell by the crowd's reaction that we'd taken our foot off the gas - the first part of the opening period had a real party atmosphere but by half time there had been long periods of almost complete silence in the stadium. I assume the only thing stopping WBA fans mocking this was the fact that they were currently 1-0 down. With hindsight they could have been a bit more confident!

Garry Monk had no managerial experience when he was given the role by the Swans, and the board knew that. He's said, correctly, that all he can do is his best and no-one can doubt that isn't the case. I still believe that he has the ability to steer us away from the relegation zone, but it has slowly become a much more pressing concern. No blame can be apportioned to Monk though. If you get asked to take over at the club you love when they're potentially in crisis, and the people in a position to do so put you in charge because they have confidence in you...well, they're the ones who are supposed to know whether a manager is the right appointment or not, not the applicant. 

It's a massive ask being given a job in such circumstances, and I think aside from the second half against Palace (where we were clearly knackered) and a weird sub or two against Napoli he's done remarkably well. Ok, the results haven't improved since Laudrup's tenure but I still feel we're on the brink of turning a corner. The key now is bouncing back and making sure that the positive changes that were made aren't forgotten, and that the level of performance returns to where we were against Napoli at home, for example. Crucially though, we need to do it for ninety minutes.

We need a good result or two and soon, and hopefully results elsewhere will be kind to us - unlike this weekend. We've got Norwich and Villa to come at home, plus Newcastle, Sunderland & Hull away (as well as games against Everton (A), Arsenal (A), Chelsea (H) & Southampton (H)) and while you might feel we could target some points in the latter four the former definitely need to be the ones we're targeting.

Having said that, next up is Everton away this coming Saturday before we go to Arsenal on the Tuesday and I've got a good feeling we can sneak a point. It'd be just like the Swans to lose and draw the games we should be winning before toppling a supposedly mighty opponent on their patch, but that's definitely the optimist in me speaking again.